President Ruto holds talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with President William Ruto on Sunday, July 30, to advance what he termed as shared priorities.
In a statement, Blinked said the two leaders discussed various issues including ending the conflict in Sudan and advancing East African Community-led talks on the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
"Spoke today with President @WilliamsRuto of Kenya to advance shared priorities, including ending the conflict in Sudan and advancing East African Community-led talks on eastern DRC," Blinken stated in a tweet.
Spoke today with President @WilliamsRuto of Kenya to advance shared priorities, including ending the conflict in Sudan and advancing East African Community-led talks on eastern DRC.— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) July 30, 2023
The Kenyan Head of State leads an IGAD sub-committee, called the Quartet Group, tasked with mediating an end to Sudan's three-and-half-month-old war.
In May, President Ruto urged Sudan's warring general to "stop the nonsense" over the worrying security situation in the country.
Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed and about a million others displaced in Sudan since battles between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who leads a paramilitary force erupted in April.
"We need to tell those generals to stop the nonsense," Ruto told a gathering of African lawmakers in South Africa.
The two generals are former allies who together orchestrated an October 2021 military coup that derailed a transition to civilian rule following the 2019 ouster of longtime leader Omar al-Bashir.
Tensions between the generals have been growing over disagreements about how Rapid Support Forces (RSF) should be integrated into the army and who should oversee that process.
Last week, General Yasir Alatta, the Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), dared Kenya to intervene in the Sudan crisis.
In an address to the media last Sunday, the army official accused President Ruto of “being a mercenary for another country” — which he did not name.
Latta made the comments after Ruto suggested deploying East African peacekeeping troops to Sudan.
